{"id":1061,"date":"2018-06-10T21:01:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T01:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2018-06-10T21:01:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T01:01:43","slug":"trump-upends-global-trade-order-built-by-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1061","title":{"rendered":"Trump Upends Global Trade Order Built by U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Ana Swanson June 10, 2018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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President Trump has criticized the tariffs imposed on American goods as \u201cridiculous and unacceptable.\u201d<\/span>Credit<\/span>Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 At the rockiest annual meeting of major Western powers in decades, President Trump criticized the tariffs imposed on American goods as \u201cridiculous and unacceptable\u201d and vowed to put an end to being \u201clike a piggy bank that everybody is robbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind Mr. Trump\u2019s outrage is his belief that the United States is at a disadvantage when it comes to global trade and is on the losing end of tariffs imposed by other nations. But to many of the country\u2019s trading partners, the president\u2019s criticisms ring hollow given that the United States places its own tariffs on everything from trucks and peanuts to sugar and stilettos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the system has problems, it is in no way \u2018unfair,\u2019 to the U.S., which as a hegemon has set the rules and the exceptions to the rules,\u201d said Susan Aaronson, a professor at George Washington University\u2019s Elliott School of International Affairs.<\/p>\n

The United States has long been the biggest champion of global trade, viewing the opening of borders as essential to strengthening not only its economy but the global economy as well. As the United States led the way in building the international trading order in the 20th century, it rose to become the world\u2019s predominant economy, and the dollar the central currency in the global financial system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead of viewing trade as a mutually beneficial relationship that lets people in both countries prosper, the president has described trading relationships as a zero-sum game, in which the United States loses out when other countries have more favorable terms. Mr. Trump has seized on trade policy to prop up industries that he has promised to revitalize, such as manufacturing, by limiting foreign competition.<\/p>\n

Many of the United States\u2019 tariffs were put in place to protect influential industries whose lobbying shops helped set high barriers to foreign products, including a 25 percent tariff on sugar and foreign trucks, and a 163 percent tariff on imported peanuts.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has ignored that history and singled out specific products where American producers face barriers, like Canada\u2019s 270 percent tariff on imported milk and Europe\u2019s 10 percent tariffs on American cars. On Saturday night, as Mr. Trump left the Group of 7 summit meeting en route to Singapore for a meeting with North Korea, he lashed out at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada once again for his country\u2019s dairy tariffs and for his criticisms of Mr. Trump\u2019s trade measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery dishonest & weak,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet aboard Air Force One. \u201cOur Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!\u201d<\/p>\n

But on average, American tariffs are on par with those of other rich, developed countries, which tend to be low, according to the World Bank and the United Nations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Among the developed nations that make up the Group of 7 that met in a resort town near Quebec City this weekend, the United States has tariffs that are slightly\u00a0higher, on average, across all its imported products<\/a>\u00a0than Canada or Japan and exactly equivalent to the four European nations in the G-7.<\/p>\n

So far this year, Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs on nearly $60 billion of steel, aluminum, solar products and washing machines that flow into the United States from around the world.<\/p>\n

He is threatening additional tariffs on foreign goods that would expand his trade penalties significantly, including a tariff on $350 billion of imported automobiles and parts and levies on $150 billion worth of Chinese goods, on the assumption those will force trading partners to drop their own barriers to entry.<\/p>\n

The approach threatens to upend the United States\u2019 longstanding embrace of free trade and its use of trading relationships to help power economic growth in the United States and the world economy writ large.<\/p>\n

Since the Second World War, the United States has cut its tariff rates in step with other developed countries. It also gave some less-developed countries access to its markets, with the idea of increasing wages and improving quality of life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n